On the afternoon of November 24 , 1971 , an unknown military man boarded flight 305 from Portland , Oregon , to Seattle , Washington . He sat there and ordered a bourbon and sal soda , before luxate a banknote to a flight attendant as she go about her duty , the offset of one of the strangest unsolved mysteries of the twentieth century .

The man had book his one - way ticket under the name Dan Cooper , which was almost sure as shooting an assumed name . Dressed smartly in a suit and generally cultivated , flight of steps attendant Florence Schaffner take he – like so many other single men on her flights – was attempting to slue her his number when he excrete her that piece of paper .

" Miss , you ’d well look at that billet , " he sooncleared up , " I have a bomb . "

Schaffner sat beside him , where he show her the turkey and explained to her his need .

“ I want $ 200,000 by 5:00 p.m. In cash . Put in a backpack . I want two back parachutes and two front parachutes . When we land , I want a fuel hand truck ready to refuel . No laughable clobber or I ’ll do the job . ”

Schaffner say the pilot burner the situation . While he conveyed the demands to the primer , she returned to the passengers , and find Cooper sat there , still tranquil and now fall apart sunglasses to go with his full suit . The humanity ’s tranquil behaviour helped to convince the gang and authorities to go along with his demands .

" He appear to be as rational as someone could be who would do something like that , " co - pilot Bill Radaczaklater say . " Because he did not come out to be emotional , we felt we could keep the situation in hand if we went along with his requests . "

When the plane bring to refuel – the authorities having assembled the required money and chute while the plane circled overhead – Cooper released the passengers as he had promised . The Boeing 727 took off once more , this clip with only Cooper and four crew member on control panel , and lead to the novel terminus of Mexico .

He would never attain that finish . While the crowd pose in the cockpit , they noticed a change in air pressure . Peter Cooper – presumably using one of the parachutes he call for – had jump from the airplane , never to be see again .

Since the highjacking , there have been many theories about who DB Cooper ( as he became know , due to a arranging computer error by a journalist ) , much of it based on hypothesis about various characters . But there is a limited amount of physical evidence , including a tie that Cooper allow for behind on the aircraft , which was examine by the FBI .

As engineering science has ameliorate , the tie has been re - analyze several sentence since the hijacking by various fact-finding teams . Using electron microscopy , a team in 2011 were able to rule grounds on the clip - on tie that Cooper could have been a dissatisfied ex - employee with a grudge against Boeing .

“ One of the most far-famed particle that we ’ve found , that had us the most excited , was titanium metallic element , ” lead scientist Tom Kayeexplained at the fourth dimension . Titanium was a hatful rarer in the 1970s , but it was used in Boeing ’s Super Sonic Transport project , one of the first passenger carpenter’s plane to expend the metal .

“ In 1971 there was a big upheaval in the Ti manufacture with the cancelling of the SST project , which happened to be at Boeing , and that laid a lot of people off in the industry . So Cooper could have been part of the fallout . "

“ Because he wore a tie , we think he was an engineer or manager who plump out on the shop floor on a regular basis , " Kaye said .

Not all are convinced . Poring over the data from that squad , which wascommissioned by the FBI , amateur investigator Eric Ulis had a different rendition . What interested him was three particles of an admixture made of Ti and Sb . This alloy , he trust , was invent by Rem - Cru , who engage in   Midland , Pennsylvania at the clip .

“ I believe that we have identified not only the company where D.B. Cooper come in from , " Ulis toldKing 5 , " but also the specific division within the ship’s company that D.B. Cooper total from . "

Ulis , who has a someone of interestingness in mind , is nowsuing the FBIin an effort to get his mitt on samples of the tie . Though they have already essay the sleeper for desoxyribonucleic acid , he conceive deoxyribonucleic acid could be incur by swab the linkup nautical mile ’s metal spindle , which could then be run through a DNA database and perhaps solve the mystery once and for all .

[ H / T : Popular Mechanics ]

An earlier adaptation of this clause was publish inJuly 2022 .